The YouTube app was supposed to get an offline playback mode some time ago, but like the subscription music service, it hasn't materialized yet. That's not stopping Google from teasing it, though. Right in the Play Store you'll find a few screenshots with a navigation menu listing for offline videos.

It's been a few months since Google accidentally left the Stars bookmark management extension visible in the Chrome App Store. We had been hearing about the development of Stars for some time before that, so its appearance was not entirely surprising. However, Mountain View removed the listing and didn't mention Stars at I/O this year. Now Florian Kiersch has gotten a look at the updated version of Stars. It's clear Google is still making improvements to the service, but it's definitely not done yet.

Again we are overflowing with Android Wear apps—both the kind built entirely for Wear, and other apps that have embraced Google's approach to smart watches. So naturally, here we are to bring you the best selections that have popped up in the last week. Strap on your watch and get ready to check out some apps. Alternatively, if you don't have an Android Wear watch, please draw a watch on your wrist with a marker and follow along.

Wearable Widgets rolled out support for Android Wear pretty quickly after the first devices hit the streets, and now there's another big update to the app. In addition to mirroring widgets from the phone, the new version can set any widget as your watch face. There are a few drawbacks, but it's a neat option.

T-Mobile is really taking a run at this whole kinder, gentler carrier thing. Among its many initiatives is the Samsung Galaxy Avant, a modestly specced phone that you can unlock (to use on other carriers) with the newly released SIM unlock app. It might come to more phones later, but it's a step in the right direction anyway.

Update 8/7/14 #1: Quite a few of you experienced issues with album art after updating to version 5.6.1616P. Google has now released a new update 5.6.1617P which resolves this (you can find the new APK below). You may need to clear data and restart the app if album art still doesn't show up.

Update 8/7/14 #2: Google posted the official changelog, and looks like this is also new in this release: "You can now undo tracks removed from playlists and the queue via swipe."

Google has been playing around with the Play Music interface a bit lately, but the widget hasn't been keeping pace.

Maybe you've seen those wacky videos of people controlling things with voice actions on Android Wear. We've posted a few of them, and Tockle is one of the pieces that makes it possible. This app has been in beta for a few weeks now, but today is the v1.0 release. You should be able to grab the stable release from the Play Store right now.

Most veteran users of Android have probably run Handcent SMS at least once over the years. It's still a very popular third-party SMS app, but the design hasn't exactly kept up with the times. Today's update doesn't solve all its ills, but v6.0 does look worlds better than the old version.